The Note: Trump steps back from the brink

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April 25, 2017

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Trump steps back from the brink

The big story

President Trump is stepping back from the brink and toward the notion of bipartisan deal-making, at least for the moment. With a government shutdown looming, his signal that funding for a border wall is not critical is almost surprisingly expected, an example of how Washington deals get cut. "The president is working hard to keep the government open," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Monday. What makes that work easier is the president's ultimate ideological flexibility; this concession comes as members of Congress from both parties were set to defy his wishes anyway. Now he's set to test the ideological flexibility of Congress, with his push for a tax overhaul that would include a giant corporate tax cut to 15 percent, from 35 percent. That's lower than even Republicans in Congress are discussing, and would challenge long-held GOP ideology (as well as blow up a one-time Trump priority) around deficit reduction.

The sleeper story

If this is the week Obamacare is repealed and replaced – and it won't be, almost certainly – a solid majority of the U.S. public thinks President Trump and the Republican Congress are doing the wrong thing. The new ABC News-Washington Post poll shows that Obamacare has gotten more popular since President Obama left office. Only 37 percent want it repealed and replaced, compared with 61 percent who want it saved and fixed. The start-stop-start repeal/replace effort has not included an effort – at least not a successful one – to sell the public on the need for a radical overhaul. Indeed, the very changes GOP leadership is now considering in an effort to round up votes – eliminating nationwide protections for those with pre-existing conditions, and national minimum-care standards – appear to be wildly popular at this moment. The signs are everywhere that this is not the place the White House can expect to go to get its legislative agenda moving.

The shiny story

There's another development that's almost normal: a questionable State Department post promoting Trump's Mar-a-Lago Florida estate was taken down late Monday, hours after it was widely covered by reporters. Its origin remains shrouded in mystery but the action was nonetheless quick, with a terse statement now replacing the "winter White House" write-up: "We regret any misperception and have removed the post." It may mark only a small victory in the effort to force accountability and a separation of the president's public and private pursuits. But it comes at a symbolically important time, with Ivanka Trump set to represent the United States and her father's administration in Germany. This looks likely to be the highest-profile Trump administration foreign trip yet, with all due respect to Vice President Mike Pence, fresh off his extended Asia tour. That it's a member of the Trump family means questions of conflicts and nepotism will be prominent in the coming days.

TLDR

President Trump seems willing to cut a deal to avoid a government shutdown, signaling to conservative reporters at a reception Monday night that he is willing to put off funding his border wall until September, helping to keep the government funded before the 100-day mark of his presidency.

New ABC News/WaPo poll - Little appetite for repealing Obamacare; large majorities support key provisions

As President Donald Trump and the Republicans in Congress gear up for another attempt at repealing and replacing Obamacare, an ABC News/Washington Post poll finds broad public preference for keeping and improving it -- including high levels of support for some of its key components. Just 37 percent of Americans in the national survey say Obamacare should be repealed and replaced; 61 percent say it should be kept and fixed instead. Even more broadly, the public by 79-13 percent says Trump should seek to make the current law work as well as possible, not to make it fail as soon as possible, a strategy he's suggested. http://abcn.ws/2oGdlxI

From A+ to F, voters grade President Trump as he nears 100 days in office

With President Donald Trump nearing 100 days in office -- and 96 percent of voters who picked him in November saying they'd do it again today -- ABC's DAVID MUIR traveled to counties in three battleground states to see how residents would grade the commander-in-chief. Muir spoke with voters in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin; just 77,000 votes in those three states decided the election. http://abcn.ws/2opE46I

Trump opens the door to delaying funding of border wall

President Trump signaled to a gathering of conservative media reporters on Monday that he may be open to delaying the funding of his proposed border wall, ABC's KATHERINE FAULDERS reports. The president said -- according to tweets from conservative media at the gathering this evening -- that his administration could get the funding for the wall this week or they could come back to it in September. Senator Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., quickly seized on the remarks in an off-camera response Monday evening saying it's good for the country that the president is taking the wall off the table in the funding negotiations. http://abcn.ws/2q06SzE

Sean Spicer defends Trump's 'significant' work in 100 days

White House press secretary Sean Spicer defended President Trump's record less than a week before the milepost of the administration's first 100 days. "When you look at the totality of what we've accomplished...it is unbelievable what he has been able to do," Spicer said at the day's press briefing, writes ABC's MEGHAN KENEALLY. He bristled when asked whether Trump would consider inaction or stalled action on issues that were regular parts of his campaign speeches a failure: http://abcn.ws/2oEnds0